INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENGINEERING AND PRODUCT DESIGN EDUCATION 4 & 5 SEPTEMBER 2014, UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE, THE NETHERLANDS FACILITATING STUDENTS’ DESIGN SENSITIVITY AND CREATIVITY IN DESIGN DETAILING AND MATERIALISATION THROUGH PHYSICAL MODELS AND PROTOTYPES Siti Salwa ISA, Andre LIEM and Bjørn BAGGERUD Department of Product Design, Norwegian University of Science and Technology ABSTRACT With respect to structured design processes, physical models are developed with the intention to give additional insight to the analytical, explorative, creative, detailing and materialisation design activities of the designer. In design education, the final two activities are often underemphasised in a structured design process, as educators tend to teach students to focus on defining problems and developing creative design solution at a strategic and conceptual level. Modes of representation in the form of holistic physical models are then developed to complement the understanding on these early stages of design activities. The neglect of detailing and materialisation activities, because of time constraints, increased accessibility to other modes of presentation such as CAD, or students´ misconceptions that creative exploration should only take place in the idea and conceptualisation stages of the design process, is a phenomenon, which need to be seriously addressed in design education. Furthermore, the student designer is not always aware of 3-D representation tools which are suited to facilitate such a divergent and creative process in this detailing and materialisation stage. The aim of this article is to propose a systematic approach for design students to select the most appropriate models and prototypes to facilitate divergence and creativity in the detailing and materialisation stages of the designing process. Keywords: Models and prototypes, Detailing and Materialisation, Design Education 1 INTRODUCTION Modelmaking and prototyping are focal areas in Industrial Design education. Every Industrial Design student should have basic skills in model making to explore form, composition and functionality from idea development to detail design. Being involved in modelmaking at an early stage, may enhance the “young designer’s” critical understanding of the design process and experience with experimentation and design decision making [1]. To avoid misconception during the materialisation and detailing stages in the design process, new learning concepts and tools are needed to assist design educators in transferring knowledge and skills to design students. Educators and students in Industrial Design should re-think the functionality of 3D physical models as these tools are not only useful in for generating design ideas, but in conceptualising and materialising the detailing aspects of the final design. Aiming to inculcate a sense of urgency among design students to develop final design concepts with high quality of detailing, this paper will proposes several learning concepts on how to use 3D visualisation, as a tool to communicate among Industrial Designers and to achieve better understanding on how physical models and prototypes can be used during detail designing and materialisation stages. In design education, Charlesworth [2] says physical modelling has always been used by design students to develop and communicate their ideas. However, the introduction of 3D computer modelling software has significantly replaced certain hands-on visualisation approaches, which were characterised by a slow, dirty and difficult process of making, into a quick and clean virtual way of designing and prototyping. On a more careful note, Charlesworth [2] added that the designer may face greater challenges and limitations when using CAD in the materialisation and realisation stages than originally anticipated . This is attributed to the lack of good information from educators to design students about the purpose and the effectiveness of models and prototypes and how these tools may contribute to enhancing students´ creativity and sensitivity. 2 HOW MODELS AND PROTOTYPES FACILITATE DIFFERENT MODES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING Due to globalisation trends and pressures on “mature and new economies” which requires highly skilled and knowledgeable human resources, educator and learners should be more reflective and critical towards which methods of learning should be promoted in which contexts. They should create a common understanding of “what” should be taught and “what” should be explored and experimented in first instance. Liem [3] emphasized that today’s Industrial Design educator must adopt a radically different and creative teaching strategy to adapt to a paradigm shift in the formation of design education, from a traditional and vocational emphasis on “making” to a broader interdisciplinary focus on “design thinking”. He considering a more practical and operational perspective in higher design education the following approaches in design teaching and learning should be examined: (1) Systematic and Process-oriented Design Teaching, (2) Reflective and Experiential Learning, and (3) Learning through a Master-Apprentice relationship in design [3]. In systematic and process-oriented design teaching, students are taught a strict development process of problems solving [4]. The central concept in such a process, are the systematic and deterministic ways of designing, inspired by a structured design engineering process. Here the main problem is partitioned into smaller sub-problems accompanied by sub-processes, which can be solved using problem-solving methods [5]. Although interaction, divergence and convergence take place in a strict development process, students tend to perceive it as a kind of “recipe” for designing. With respect to models and prototypes, modes of representation are then specifically dedicated to certain stages of the process. For example, a sketch model out of foam is being created to complement the idea generation stages, whereas a non-functional design model is created to supplement the final design. This somehow prescriptive approach on how to use models to support the designing activity may restrict to some extent creative thinking. It may naturally lead to a more straight forward and rather narrow exploration of design details and ways of materialisation. Moreover, a systematic but linear design approach makes students unable to carry forward and integrate learnings from one stage to the next. They find it difficult to revisit some earlier design decisions, which might qualitatively improve the design [6]. From this perspective, the authors argue for a more constructionist reflection-in-action approach as a reaction to the rational problem-solving philosophy [7]. As design problems are unique and difficult to generalize, designers’ or developers’ actions and efforts, should focus on reflective and conjectural conversations with the situation in order to reinterpret and improve the problem as a whole. Methods applied by the designer are to be based on acquired knowledge, experience, and reasoning. In terms of representation and exploration, such an approach in designing and design learning advocates the use of a broader spectrum of modelmaking and prototyping methods and tools, also for detailing and materialisation. Learning through Master-Apprentice relationships in design has its roots in the hermeneutic ways of reasoning. Here, the central challenge for the master and apprentice is to gain a sustained and increasing understanding of the designed product, its contexts, values, and functions until the both have decided that saturation has been reached [8]. As the potential solutions and the choices faced are practically infinite, the design apprentice must, with the help of the master, reduce variety by establishing a direct understanding among its objectives, processes and solution [9]. Hereby, the master´ designer’s personal experience and intrinsic knowledge base are invaluable. Complementary, such a Master-Apprentice constellation, demands a research-based learning approach, where the “apprentice” is encouraged to learn from the “master” and have direct access to the latest knowledge and ideas from the “master”. In return, the “master” can assign the students to assist him with creating and experimenting (Modelmaking and prototyping) to find new knowledge. 3 CREATIVITY IN THE DESIGN PROCESS Various literature studies support the fact that designers use their creativity in developing a wide variety of physical models based on their intuition and experience. According to Viswanathan and Linsey [10] there is a limitation as how to teach creativity to designers. However, Hasirci and Demirkan [11], claim that creativity can be stimulated by teaching students creativity methods and techniques. Loewy [12], mentioned that the most important design discoveries took place during modelmaking practices with various materials in the detailing and refinement stages of the design process. He suggested that students should be given a freedom to develop their own design methods and tools by encouraging them to experiment with materials and constructions without being worried of making mistakes or exceeding deadlines. By appropriately using physical models in the design process, it can help the designers to evaluate and fine-tune their final design as well as confirm certain critical requirements. In this context, Viswanathan and Linsey’s [10] experiment also demonstrated that creating appropriate physical prototypes enhances the designer’s innovative